After Further Review: Wie, Kuchar, MAJ in spotlight

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Each week, GolfChannel.com takes a look back at the week in golf. In this edition of After Further Review, our writers weigh in on The Most Interesting Golfer In the World winning in his Champions Tour debut (only serving to make him More Interesting), Matt Kuchar breaking through for a win after a series of disappointments and the marketing opportunities open to the LPGA in light of recent events, including Michelle Wie's win on Saturday.

Miguel Angel Jimenez doesn’t win trophies; trophies win him. The amount of The Most Interesting Golfer In the World memes in the past two weeks alone have been enough to saturate an unwitting Twitter feed, but lost behind the classic mirrored shades and the constantly cool persona is the fact that Jimenez still owns plenty of game. At age 50, he won his Champions Tour debut this week by two strokes, which should come as little surprise fresh off his Masters title contention seven days earlier. He still hits a ton of fairways and greens – and while his goal of making the European Ryder Cup team might sound lofty, it’s entirely possible. Like the fine wine that Jimenez knows all too well, he’s proving that sometimes golfers also get better with age. And there’s nothing cooler than that. - Jason Sobel

Matt Kuchar proved there is no shelf life for disappointment. After coming up short at the Shell Houston Open, where he began the final round with a four-stroke lead but closed with an even-par 72 and lost a playoff to Matt Jones, and at the Masters, where he finished in the top 10 the last three years in his quest for his first major championship, Kuchar rebounded on Sunday at the RBC Heritage with a closing 64 for his first victory of the season. “He doesn’t look in the rearview mirror,” said Kuchar’s swing coach Chris O’Connell. Nor does it seem like much bothers him. - Rex Hoggard

Women’s golf is doing its best to reach beyond its niche audience and win new followers this year. LPGA commissioner Mike Whan couldn’t give his marketing department a better script to sell the tour than what they’ve got to work with now. Michelle Wie wins the Lotte Championship on Saturday, following Lexi Thompson’s victory over Wie in a duel at the Kraft Nabisco. If somebody from WWE were hired to fix tour events to heighten excitement in the women’s game, that’s what the hired gun might have come up with.

The only way the casting and scripting get more brilliantly appealing this next week is if Cheyenne Woods suddenly appears on the Swinging Skirts field list and wins with her uncle Tiger following her in the final round.

With Paula Creamer winning this year, sinking that dramatic 70-foot putt in a playoff at the HSBC, with the controversy created over Golf Digest putting Paulina Gretzky on its cover, with some angst going public over the U.S. Women’s Open following the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, the women’s game is doing quite nicely breaking beyond its traditionally tight borders. Now that Whan has rebuilt the women’s schedule, his focus is on building tour purses. If the women can build new interest with all this new publicity, he might not have to sell the idea quite so hard. The women’s game will sell itself. – Randall Mell